Monday, September 10, 2012

Best Lake Vacations

Best for fishing: Lake Superior is so vast it could easily hold all of the water from all of the other Great Lakes. That means there's plenty of room for fish to thrive: salmon, trout, walleye, smelt, whitefish, herring, northern pike, smallmouth bass and many other game species can be caught in abundance along the lake's tristate shores. No matter what time of year, some sort of fishing is in season; Duluth (MN) and Bayfield (WI) are among the charter hubs.

Lake Michigan: Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois

Best for beaches: With more than 1,600 miles of shoreline, Lake Michigan offers more beaches than any other American lake. But it's not just quantity: there's a beach for nearly every taste.

The big-city strands that front Chicago, the wild rolling dunes of northern Indiana, the pastoral shores of Wisconsin's Door Peninsula and the carnival-like atmosphere along the Traverse City Boardwalk offer totally different sun-and-sand experiences on the same lake. You'll pass that boardwalk on the scenic drive from Bay Harbor to Sleeping Bear Dunes.